The great big "ask an airline pilot" thread!

Thanks.

I believe they have a minimum equipment list (mel) and if anything on this breaks/doesn't work you cannot go.

Its actually the other way around, the MEL gives us relief, so it will say something like number of gauges installed 2, number required for dispatch 1, xx amount of time to fix it, then it will give procedures for the crew and for maintenance.

It gets fun when the item isn't in the MEL, this means that there is no relief, and you completely stranded, locked up in a hotel room listening to noises of the city, waiting for a manufacturers team to come rescue you.... :)

Heard a great one a few weeks ago on 121.5... for a period of about ten minutes all we could hear was "where is he, where is he?" repeated at intervals for the duration. After about ten minutes Nigel finally responded "you're on gaurd" to which the reply was "ah there he is".

Epic

Secondly, there was chatter between two voices on 121.5 over the Paris area during the summer. All in french, one sounded quite panicked and stressed. Nigel kept interupting in his usual condescending arsehole way "you're on gaurd" to which one of the voice came on in English and said "to the aircraft constantly interupting this emergency call please stop". Old Nige clearly didn't believe this was real and said "you're still on gaurd if this is genuine please speak english". To which he got a proper verbal slap from the controller who told him it was easier to handle the emergency situation in french than in english. Stupid ignorant Nigel didn't reply again.

Serious lack of professionalism and airmanship on Nigel's behalf.

Why are the departure controllers in Dublin being very specific recently in asking flights for the first waypoint in their flight management systems when departing on runway 28? They prompt the flight deck into ensuring the OE marker is in the plan. It doesn't seem to matter much as most flights turn before OE on a LIFFY departure as far as I can see.

fat-tony wrote: »

Why are the departure controllers in Dublin being very specific recently in asking flights for the first waypoint in their flight management systems when departing on runway 28? They prompt the flight deck into ensuring the OE marker is in the plan. It doesn't seem to matter much as most flights turn before OE on a LIFFY departure as far as I can see.

It's been like that for a few years. Story goes that a heavy freighter - possibly AF747 departed off R28 but had loaded in the SID for a category A aircraft. Therefore they turned early and low and set off all the noise abatement bells and whistles. Only airport that I have come across that does this. Seems overkill when a letter to the operator would have sufficed but it seems to be how they deal with issues in Dublin - wield a big stick and make everyone else suffer. I suspect also that it won't deal with the issue as many will just read back without actually checking it to the fmc. A better fix would be to rename the departures so that cat a/b aircraft SIDs are called something different to a c/d. But that would no doubt cost money. Cynical - moi?

This is a nice general bit of info on the tracks. The links at the bottom of the wiki will take you to the Jeppesen daily pictorial of the tracks for that day - heading either east or west depending on what you choose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Tracks

Its worth noting that airlines/operators are not compelled to fly on the organised track system (OTS) although they are encouraged to. There are also random routes which by definition are outside of the OTS. I would guess that maybe 5-10% of our flights are random routes. Main reasons being that the distance is longer than our planners would like eg:more fuel/cost. Ideally we would like to fly a great circle which is the shortest distance between two points but this is not always possible due to winds and/or weather. But we try to approximate that wherever possible. Hence you will find that the tracks and therefore your flight to JFK could travel across any manner of ways over the course of a year.

To see what a great circle is between two airports the following website is useful. You can compare that to the various tracks on a given day and no doubt will see quite a difference.

http://www.gcmap.com/

If you are really bored then the following document is the "bible" so to speak for the Atlantic. It contains all the rules and procedures.

http://www.paris.icao.int/documents_open/files.php?subcategory_id=108

Why do pilots and ATCs say "niner" instead of nine

and on a side note; does crossing pacific work the same way say from LAX to SIN??

No, they have fixed airways.

We flew this last week, its a random track as we were later than they normal west-east flow, and we were also above the tracks. We use Jeppesen flight planning services, so it would calculate a route based on the shortest time which really means the best winds. We would take this route and plot it on a chart, we would the plot the applicable tracks so that we know how to avoid them in the event that we descend. I love flying the atlantic as there is such an awesome thrill associated with it

smurfjed wrote: »

Considering 450 pax with 20 kgs each, the expected load would be 9,000 kgs, so if the load sheet showed Zero, then the answer would most likely be yes. However, if the airline gave a 30 kg allowance and only 9,000 kgs was loaded, then the crew most likely wouldn't know.

I thought that modern aircraft had load cells on their undercarriage to detect all up weight and take care of the weight and balance calculations.
I know for sure that the C5A Galaxy [admittedly a military transport] had them and it seemed such a good idea that I thought it would be adopted by civilian aircraft.
When they were first introduced they were regarded as a Loadmasters dream because they did away with the need for complicated "trim sheets" which could become quite complex given the variety of load weights at various distances fore and aft of a datum point.

smurfjed wrote: »

Very few aircraft have weight monitors, and given the tolerances required due to lift created by wind etc, they aren't very accurate.
I would have thought that loadmasters would see them as a nightmare, as it would automate their role and remove the requirement to have them onboard.

The load cells I referred to only worked on the ground.
I think they worked on the principle of strain gauges on each undercarriage strut.
Once airborne they were of course redundant.
As regards the Loadmasters roll being diminished it merely removed a somewhat tedious chore.
When preparing for a mixed load heavy drop where a drogue chute pulled out the main parachute and they in turn pulled out a four wheel drive laden with radio equipment, followed by a five ton lorry, followed by a medium or even a heavy tank, followed by several pallets of supplies, all chundering down the roller conveyer at a rate of knots towards the rear loading doors at 1000 feet AGL in turbulent conditions.... believe me the last thing you would need to worry about is having to prepare a trim sheet.

The vast vast majority will never get a rhs on a commercial aircraft. That is the reality that wannabes don't want to face. I would say as a rough figure completely plucked from the sky that something like 5-10% might get a start. Of that you have to wonder how many actually end up paying back their training and loss of earnings and making a successful living out of aviation.

From the attached you will see the number of CPLs issued for the 2012-13 year by the UK CAA. You can search out the other years and spreadsheet it but I am reasonably sure it is similar. 1300 each and every year including all those periods when airlines were letting go staff. It is also only one authorities statistics and within the EU you will be up against people from across it for jobs.

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/175/Licensing_Transactions_April_2011_March_2012.pdf